Cindy Sheehan and the Politics of Motherhood: Politicized Maternity in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

[1] In September 2005, activist and mother Cindy Sheehan was arrested in front of White House for participating in an organized peaceful sit-in, in which protesters demanded that George Bush receive their request for his plan to end war in Iraq. The civil disobedience action came at end of a weekend long demonstration in Washington, DC, opposing war. Sheehan had gained notoriety that previous August when she camped outside of Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, demanding an audience with him so he could explain noble cause for which her son died (Sheehan 2005). Sheehan's encampment, dubbed Camp Casey after son she lost in war, became a powerful symbol for anti-war movement--one that highlighted anguish of a citizen mother. Sheehan's actions were not novel or new--but actions that had historical precedent. In participating as a mother in public sphere of political protest, Sheehan was practicing a form of twenty-first century Republican Motherhood and her actions imbued growing anti-war action with cultural currency of motherhood. Cindy Sheehan's protests, while endlessly discussed and displayed in media coverage of her actions, cannot be comprehended without an understanding of ways in which American women have framed their civil actions in context of motherhood. In addition, motherhood has been used as a way for media and public to interpret Sheehan's actions, as well as other women's political protests and activism, to create a frame of reference that is congruent with identification of women as mothers and wives, thereby reinforcing accepted gender roles. Sheehan's actions politicized her maternity, turning constructed and widely accepted gender role of motherhood into a political weapon. [2] Scholars of United State's history and women's history are well acquainted with term Republican Mother. Linda Kerber popularized term over 30 years ago when she articulated creation of a political role for women of revolutionary generation. Kerber argued that the tangled and complex role of Republican Mother offered one among many structures and contexts in which women might define civic culture and their responsibilities to state ... (Kerber 1976, 188). Furthermore, Republican Mothers used their roles to secure access to education for themselves and their daughters, using domestic sphere, a realm reserved exclusively for women, as a locus of public agency and authority for women. Although Kerber was writing about political role of women in absence of male rights of citizenship, I would argue that political actions of women under guise of motherhood can still be defined as a version of Republican Motherhood, but perhaps we need another term--politicized maternity--to describe political currency of motherhood. Whichever term we use, it is clear that Cindy Sheehan's protests, earning her title Peace Mom, were rooted in activism of her ideological maternal predecessors, especially those who have protested America's involvement in war and organized violence, and provide a model for historical continuity in understanding women's strategies for effective political activism. Only by understanding history of women using motherhood and accepted boundaries of gender for their own purposes, can we make sense of Sheehan's successful use of her own motherhood. Sheehan, like many women and mothers before her, transformed maternal practice from a commitment to treasure bodies and minds at risk into organized resistance to violence that threatens them (Ruddick 1995, 157). [3] Cindy Sheehan's protests are part of tangled historical and contemporary discourses on motherhood and gendered cultural logic of motherhood. Motherhood, as a political tool, has been appropriated by forces along entire continuum of political spectrum. Both pro and anti-war movements have used gendered discourse of maternity to promote their causes, each relying on feminized discourse and praxis of culture of motherhood. …